The 2018-19 swim and dive team with its 95 members, 80 swimmers, and 15 managers ended a successful season. Coach Sophie Sabbah coached 20 student-athletes to LA City Preliminaries, 16 moved on to LA City League Finals, and two went to the CIF State Finals in Fresno. The girls got fifth place in City overall and the boys got 11th place in City overall.

Senior Alyssa Berman, city champion for the 100 butterfly, was one of the two who made it to State Finals. Berman came in 37th place out of 40, making her the 37th fastest butterflyer in the state of California.

“Swimming is a really hard sport that you put in a lot of hours of work and time and then you have to wait until the end of the season to see that pay off,” said Berman. “I was really excited at the end that all that hard work paid off and I got to place. I’m really proud.”

Senior Justin Delgado, a diver, also made it to State Finals. Delgado was able to get 28th place out of 29, even though he only learned how to dive about three months ago.

“I’ve been doing gymnastics for 10 years so I mean it kind of comes with that, but learning to go head first was new,” said Delgado. “It felt fun to get to do something like that for the first and last time.”

Saying goodbye to the season also means saying goodbye to the seniors. Coach Sabbah might have to rebuild her team for the next season as she’s losing 35 seniors this year.

“I’m having a really hard time of letting them go cause I love them so much,” said coach Sabbah. “That’s why it’s so hard as a teacher when the seniors leave because they all promise to come back and they don’t.”